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In this posting I want to explore a common myth created over the past few years, that if you want to succeed in business today, you need a website. It’s a lie and in fact, most businesses build websites that hurt their real world endeavors more than help them. Let’s take a look at some examples of how your website can actually hurt your business.

My cousin, the web designer

The first major mistake? Hiring family or more generally the inexperienced web designer. I’m not knocking your cousin, nor am I implying that your cousin lacks basic computer skills but unless your cousin is building professional websites  and paying the bills doing so … hiring him to represent your business is like hiring Uncle Harry to take your wedding photos. They’re going to last forever, so be careful.

Take this to heart, not all computer people are web designers.

If your cousin knows how to code, great he’s most likely a good database developer or maybe he can string together the computers to take restaurant orders but … before he designs the face of your business take a look at how his sense of style, his understanding of basic color matching and how he deals with dressing for family dinners. Trust me, you might be better asking his wife to design your website.

Remember, whenever somebody is willing to help you for free, the long term price is usually too high. If on the other hand you don’t have a budget to put up a website right now, call a few local (experienced) web designers and ask them if they’re accepting trades. You’d be surprised, many designers happily do great work for camera lenses, dinner’s out, vacations, hotel reservations, skis or just about anything else you can think of. 

What’s a 404?

Oh my. OK, problem number two I run into with businesses looking to get online? Business owners that lack a basic understanding of how the technology works. Please, please, please … learn the basics before you spend a penny on your website or you’ll be taken advantage of either intentionally or through poor judgement. The web is not a complicated tool, it’s just new. Frankly, if my mother can figure it out so can you.

So before you step into the big scary world of hiring somebody or spending much money on the web, here’s what you need to do:

1. Register your domain name.

Yep, that’s it. Nothing else. A domain name is your outward facing identity on the web, just like your business has a name you’ll need a name on the web. My name? Christopher Ross but christopherross.com was already taken so I took thisisimyurl.com, I like the sound of it and it makes me chuckle. How do you register a domain name? It’s really simple and will cost you about $10 per year, a small investment to protect your branding. If you honestly can’t do it after reading my blog post about it, give me a call and I’ll do it for you for a decent price.

As for learning a little about getting on the Internet, it’s all about reading so take a minute and Google your subject of interest. Search for subjects like “How to build a website for restaurants”  if you’re looking to run a site for a restaurant. I just did it and found a great article called Top 10 Web Site Mistakes That Restaurants Make, actually it distracted me for a few minutes while I went on to read all about it. Remember, knowledge is power … as GI Joe used to tell us every episode, “Knowing is half the batter. Yo Joe!”

Outdated Content

When outdated web content can hurt you ... during a major media release.

OK I promised myself I wouldn’t “out” this poor guy but I want to tell you a cute story that I’m sure you’ll find shocking. My home town is pretty small for a regional capital, we’re 80,000 people and right in the heart of our city a new business opened up just in time for the Christmas rush. Awesome right? I thought so too, so I went to check out his website and guess what? It says “Opening November 2008″, that’s all. 

I read an article in the local pager and it was great, it featured his store and products told us how much of a geek the owner was (the store is all about techies) and pointed to his website. Awesome right? I would kill for a great write up like that … except you’re going to laugh when I tell you this, guess what his website says? It says “Opening November 2008″, that’s all. I swear I’m not joking. I’d link to it but I understand enough about how the Internet works to know that it would only hurt me in the end. His shop is wonderful but I’d by lying to you if I told you that his website was doing anything but damaging people’s opinion of his business.

Sure you might say, it’s only January so how outdated is it really? 7,257,600 seconds. We’re talking about the Internet not printed material, website content should be updated daily for most websites, weekly for some and at a bare minimum monthly for everybody else out there. No website, under any circumstances should have an outdate welcome page because in the end, you know what it says to your customers? You don’t care.

Conclusion

In the end, modern businesses need websites but not if the business owners are going to hurt themselves by putting up a poorly designed site or outdated content. Business owners need to educate themselves and manage their online website with the same care and quality as they manage their own retail or office environments.